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Friday, April 27, 2012

Laziness rules me these days...A vacation changes your whole routine..Staying with a crowd for 3 weeks and now almost alone throughout day makes me mad, sad and desp...I guess same is with my son...He pulls me from kitchen and makes me sit on the couch and plays in front of me...Looks like he too is missing the crowd who used to play with him, laugh at his pranks..
This recipe belongs to Mom...she did it...I just carried it to US..While going to India had plans of clicking some pics there...but to our horror our camera battery and charger was missing...We thought that it would safely be at home but No...its not...Now where is it? Anyways we bought a new set now..
Here is the recipe according to mom..

Method Of Preparation:
1. Wash the tender mangoes, drain, pat them dry and keep aside. Take care that the mangoes are real dry with no trace of water.
2. Place the mangoes in a bharani and layer them with salt.Now close the lid and tie the mouth of bharani with a clean cloth.
3. Keep this for 2 weeks.By then the mangoes will shrink and there will be salt brine. These mangoes can be kept for years.

To make pickle:
1. Heat the mustard seeds slightly and then give a quick pulse to remove the seeds from the outer black cover.Now dust the black cover and keep the yellow colored seeds alone.
2. Separate the salt brine and mangoes in two clean dry vessels.Add the mustard seeds, chili powder and asafoetida powder to the salt brine and mix well.
3. Add the mangoes to this and mix well.
4. Heat the sesame oil and cool it.
5. Add half ot the cooled oil to the mango pickle and mix well.Transfer it to dry bharani and add the remaining oil on top of it.
6. Close the lid and tie with the white cloth. Keep it for a month or two before using.

Notes
1. Water should not be there in the whole process.The presence of water reduces the shelf life.
2. When I refer to salt brine I mean salt and the water oozed out of mango.
3. Use the salt brine as needed while making pickle.Too much of it in the pickle makes it watery.
4. Nattumanga(Sour variety of tender mango) is the best to make this pickle.
5.while heating the mustard take care that it doesn't crack.
6. The mangoes can be left in the salt brine for years, if every procedure is followed properly.These mangoes are called uppu manga(salted mangoes)
7.The chili powder can be adjusted to the spice level,usually these pickles are spicy.
8. Bharani can be replaced with glass jars.
9. The mangoes are put with a small part of their stem(kanni).This enhances the taste.